FSFE Newsletter - November 2011

WWW would have been better if it was patented

How long should copyright last? Should living beings or software be
patentable? The World Intellectual Property Organisation deals with this sort
of questions. Since 2004, we are involved in the WIPO to make sure they do not
harm Free Software. Our most important demand is that when it comes to
copyright and patents, the benefits should be weighed against the costs.

Daily business - step by step

Why do FSFE so frequently give interviews and talks, and travel to promote
FSFE issues? Our mission is to promote freedom in emerging digital society. So
as you can see on our events page it is part
of our daily business to travel around, give talks, interviews, and organise
events. Paul Boddie improved our
Fellowship event calendar which now integrates GriCal. This way you can
subscribe to the calendar. If you are already subscribed to the the event's RSS feed or the Ical feed you can skip the
next paragraph.

So for example in October Karsten and Matija gave talks at LinuxCon Europe
in Prague, Sam gave a speech at the DIY Feminist Festival in
Manchester, our UK team had a booth at FLOSS UK Unconference 2011 in
Manchester, your editor gave a talk about "10 misunderstandings about Free
Software (or are they lies?)" at the technical university in Berlin, our
Austrian coordinator Peter Bubestinger gave a talk "Free Software and Open
Formats: virtual immortality and independence for digital archives" at the
National Library in Vienna, and our French coordinator Hugo Roy organised a talk
on "A Free Digital Society" by Richard Stallman.

Denmark - Portugal 4:5. The regular qualification for the EURO2012 in
Free Software are over. Which country has good Free Software and Open
Standard practices? Guido Arnold
looked at this. (Even though they were not able to win against
Belgium, your editor is happy that Germany qualified. It is difficult to
compete against teams with such good players as FOSDEM.)

Get Active: Document Freedom Day - Let's get ready to rumble

Coordination for next years Document
Freedom Day is starting. Your editor is responsible for next years
international coordination, and shamelessly asks you to join the team,
subscribe to our
mailinglist, give input about the last year, help with campaign planing,
taking care of coordination events in a certain country, taking care with the
communication with partners, help with the organisation of events for next
year, help with setting up the new website, writting texts,
translate them, help with designing t-shirts and other promotion materials, or
if you do not have time, make a donation
to support us in this activity.